POWER/KNC =" Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 Michel Foucault Professor ofthe History of Sytensof Towel College de France eed by COLIN GORDON apie Coleg, Oxford Tonsley COLIN GORDON, LEO MARSHALL SOHN MEPHAM, KATE SOPER HARVESTER WHEATSHEAF5 TWO LECTURES Lecture One: 7 January 1976 have wanted to speak to you of my deste to be finished th, and to somehow terminate a setes of researches that have been our concern for some four or five years nowy it effet, from the date of my arrwval here, and which, Tam well aware, have met with increasing dificulties, both for You and for myself. Thosgh these researches were very losely related to each other, they have failed to develop Into any continuous of coherent whole. They are fragmen: {ary researches, none of which in the last analysis can be hid to have proved definitive, nor even to have led any where. Diffused and at the same time repetitive, they have Continually retod the same ground, lvoked the same themes, he same concept et ‘You will recall my work here, such a thas been: some if notes oa the history of penal procedure, a chapter oF 50 fn the evolution and instuicnalisation of psychiatry in the fineteenth century, some observations of sophistry, on Greek money, on the medieval Inquistion. Ihave sketched a history of sexuality or at last a history of knowledge of Sexuality on the basis of the confessional practice of the Seventeenth century or the forms of contol of infantile Sexuality in the eighteenth to nineteenth century. 1 have Sketched a genealogical hisiory of the origins of «theory and a knowledge of anomaly and of the various techniques that felatetoit, None of it dacs more than mark time. Repetitive and disconnected, it advances nowhere. Since indeed it ever ceases to sa) the same thing, It perhaps says nothing, Tis tangled up into an indecipherable, organised ‘muddle. If a nuthell, is inconclusive Sl, {could claim tht after all these were only trails to be followed, itmattered lite where they led: indeed, was Important that they did not have a predetermined starting point and destination. They were merely ines laid down for Fou to pursue orto divert elsewhere, for me to extend upon Two Lectures ~ for redesign as the cate might be. They ar, in the final ‘nalyi, just fragments, and i upto you or me to see ‘hat we can mate of them. For my party thas suck me that might have seemed abit ike @ whale that leap othe Surface ofthe water disturbing t momentarily with tiny et Ot spray and lets tbe believed, or pretends to believe, OF ‘wants to believe, orhinvelt does infact indeed believe, hat down athe pita where no oe sees im any moe, where he'is no longer witnessed nor controlled by anyone, he follows a more profound, coherent and reasoned tectory. ‘Well anyway hat was more or ess bow Fat least concened the siation; it epuld be tha ou perceived i diferent “After al, the fact thatthe character ofthe work Ihave presentedsio you has been atthe same time fragmentary. Fepetitve and dicontnuous could well be a teflstion of Something one might describe as febrile indolence a Sypal afc of those cnamouted of iates done ments, roference works, dusty tomes, texts that are never ead, books that are no sooner printed than they ae com Signed tothe shelves of ibraiet where they theater Le dormant 0 be taken up ony some ceaturs later. I would ‘accord al too well withthe busy eri of those who proess an idle knowledge, «species of luxuriant sagas, the ich hoard of the parsenut whore oly outward signs sre i played in footnotes at the botiom ofthe page. It would {fovord with all those who fel themsclis tobe asccaes of One ofthe more ancient or more typkal secret societies of the West, those odaly indestructible societies unknowa i Would seem to Antiquity, which came into being with Christianity, most likely a he te of the fst monasteries, at the periphery ofthe ‘avasons, the es and the forest: { ‘meat fo speak of the reat warm and tender Freemasonry of Seles erudition However, iti not simpy a taste for such Freemasonry tha as ingpted my cours of action, scene ome thatthe work we have done eould be justified by the lam that tis Adequate toa restrcied perio, tht ofthe last ten, teen, atmos twenty years a period notable for wo evens which forall they may oot be really important are nonetheles 10 ‘my mind quite interesting. ‘On the one hand, it has been a period characterised by0 PoweriKnowledge hat one might term the etescy’ofdipersed and discon- Unuourofemnes There ses tue hinge ane In hee. thinking fr example wee Ives dct Sf undermining the fncton of pyc ston of that carious etcay of leased dnpoyehatrcducoursce, These are discourses which you are well aware acked ee sill ack any systematic ponepies of coudation of te King that would ave provided oF migt today proves system of relerence for them I am tiki of orignal iicence oar extn anno aindectons inspired in a general way by Marni, such ay Reschian theory. pains have in min tha strange elie) of te tacks int av ee drt sei ional moray find hierarchy, atch nich again hve no elrens okey Berbaps in a'sague and funy distant way to Rech and raat. On the other hand there ao the efescy ofthe attacks upon the legal and penal system some of win had avery tensous connection with the general andi any nse Prey dubious potion of eas jus, while others had s fatet more precisydcbaedafnty with anc ees Equally, 1am thinking of the eitay of» bok sch ss nr Oedipe, wich ely hao other source of etrence than ts own prodigious theoreti inenvensy 4 BOE, oF rather a thing, an event, which has managed, even atthe ‘ost mundane level of psychoanalytic practice oinoduee 2 note of shines nt hat muroured exchange that hes for so long continued uninterrupted between foveh so armchair T would say, then, tat what has emerged inthe course of the last ten or fiten years a sence ofthe inteaing Vulnerability to erteluh of things inson. paces incouses. Azra rally has bee dscovered i te ‘ery beirock of exstent—even and perhaps above a in thse aspect of that are moe amily mos sol and tos italy related to our toes andi or eveyaay Behaviour But together wit thi ons of ia ae this amazing efeay of dacontinuous, patel an local ertcsm, one infact abo discovers something tha perhaps ‘as fot inal forsee, someting one mig deseo precely te ihibing tect of lob, ttaltaron tense A'S'not tha these global tases have not pone nor Two Lectures st {ottinu o provide ina fairly consistent fashion useful tols for loa research: Marais aod pychoanals se poet this, Bu believe these tools have only been proves ok the condition thatthe theretial wy of these Sates was in same sense putin abeyance, or a leat core divided vertrowa, catkatued,theatiealsed, of what you wil In each cate, the atempt to tink fete at ‘oly has in fet proved shindrane oath So, tbe main pot to be gleaned from these cnet ofthe last fifteen years, their predominant feature te ed frat ofericism, Tt should not bee, fe {1 mean that its qualives are those of an css, sakes [primitive empiricism: nor sit soggy esecicim: anon |tunism that laps up any and every hind of these lapproach; nor does i mean a seltanposed acetner ch [ken by ise would reduce othe wort Lind of theme} Jimpoverisment. I believe that wha: ths exeniy eal characer of eric inaicates ia reality i an someon ‘non centralised kind of theoretal production, one thet ay S2y whose vali snot dependent onthe approval of the established regimes of thought leis Rere that we touch pon another feature of these vents that as been manifest for some tine now: eens ‘me that ths local erica hes proceed by mean of haa fone might tem ‘a return of Kaowedge’, What I meer that phrase i this its fact that Me have repeatedly encountered, at leas ata Supericiallvcl, in the cours of mow rece ines tn ene hematite fe thar te 01 theory bu life that matter, not Knowledge but ean sot books but money et but fs seems nett oe and above, and arising out of this tema, there aoe, {hinge 10 which we ate wines. and which we apie as an inurecon of sbjugaied knowledge By subjugated knowiedges I mean two Hit 6 the one and, 1am telerrng tothe hatoral ontets ‘hat fave been buried and disguised ina functionalist cobernce or fomal syemisaion Conceal th nots sesagy of the Wie ofthe asym, isnot sven sociology af foine enc tha has made it posible to produce sr ete {icin ofthe asylum anaikewise of he rian bar aes the immediate emergence of historical contents, Aad the